


Given by Light When it Gleams

by killthwight



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Soulmarks, Three Year Gap (Dragon Ball), cursing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-24 10:28:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30070863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killthwight/pseuds/killthwight
Summary: He hadn’t been wrong, and there, right under his eyes, were the triangular symbols he hadn’t seen in decades, spelling out his name in the Saiyan alphabet on the woman's left wrist.Soulmate AU. Vegeta returns to Earth shortly before Future Trunks appears and glimpses something entirely unexpected.
Relationships: Bulma Briefs/Vegeta
Comments: 15
Kudos: 59





	1. Vegeta I

**Author's Note:**

> This fic wouldn't exist without AMarguerite's [An Ever-Fixed Mark](https://archiveofourown.org/series/629375) series. If you like Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice I highly recommend reading it, it's a masterpiece and brilliantly deconstructs the Soulmark trope. I'm using a similar concept, in which a name appears on a person's wrist when they are a teenager. What it means is open to interpretation. 
> 
> A short note on spelling: I did not watch DB in English, so I use the names and terms I first encountered in canon. The only exceptions so far are Saiyan and Namekian.

Vegeta engaged the spaceship’s reentry protocols and confirmed the landing coordinates—the same as when he took off a few months ago. He didn’t bother warning his hosts that he was making his way back to Earth, much less to their backyard, and he just assumed he wouldn’t be welcomed regardless; much better to show up unannounced. He felt the ship jolt as it entered Earth’s atmosphere, and then it started vibrating due to aerodynamic drag.

He gritted his teeth, frustrated with the ship and with himself. He was returning emptyhanded, no clue or leads as to where Kakarotto might be. It hadn’t been easy trying to find signs of the other Saiyan while keeping a low profile—he was still a wanted man in most of the Kold empire’s ports. He was pleased to see Frieza’s corner of the empire was falling apart without signs of the dictator or his highest-ranking lieutenants and the Ginyu Force, bases and ports in complete disarray without their leadership. But the rumors were that King Kold and Cooler were slowly consolidating Frieza’s planets, bringing them into their own purview in his absence. Vegeta knew that once he ascended and defeated Kakarotto he would have to face both of the lizards and rid the universe of their rule once and for all.

Once the ship stopped rattling it only took a few minutes to feel the second jolt as it landed, and its weight bore down on mechanical feet. The console emitted several beeps as the ship powered down and became ready to open its main door, and he stood up, picking up his gloves on the way. He pulled them on, glancing at the unintelligible mark that crossed his right wrist before it disappeared under the white fabric. He didn’t think it would matter if any of the Earthlings saw the mark, the alphabet unknown to him and likely to them too, but old habits die hard.

He walked up to the main door and heard the spaceship depressurize with a hiss as it opened, sun immediately warming him up as he walked down the gangway onto the grass. He thought the blue-haired harpy would be there to scream at him for returning, but instead he saw her blonde mother, smiling and waving.

“Welcome back, Vegeta! Did you have a safe trip?” she asked, and he blinked in surprise. He quickly pulled his features back into a frown.

“It was tolerable.” He unceremoniously walked past her, then turned around. “I would like a meal as soon as possible.”

“Of course! You must be starving, all these months in space. Go take a shower, rest a bit, and I’ll have some food ready for you in under an hour.” Her smile seemed genuine, her enthusiasm clear in her voice, and Vegeta didn’t understand what made her so keen to please him. He just grunted in reply and kept walking towards the room that had been his when he first arrived.

He didn’t see any signs of the other humans that lived in the house, and quickly found himself in his room, surprised to see everything was untouched. Not that he had left much behind, but his broken armor from Namek was still sitting in a corner of the room, previous gloves discarded on a desk. He removed the pair he currently wore, then his armor and clothes, and made his way into the shower.

The warm water felt glorious on his skin after so long with only sonic showers and occasional dips in alien lakes. He scrubbed the months’ worth of grime and dried blood, then just stood under the hot spray, letting the water sooth his muscles and his frustration.

He had decided to return to Earth after searching as far and as thoroughly as possible for Kakarotto, without any signs of where the other man could be hiding in the vastness of space. He didn’t understand why the other Saiyan hadn’t made his presence known, but figured his best bet was now Earth. The idiot had either already returned, or he would be returning soon, what with his brat and his mate on this planet. He decided that after his meal he’d go after the blue-haired woman to find out if the idiot was already back.

He realized that as he had been thinking of what to do next, he had started staring at his mark again. The black script was marred by scars now, what he supposed were the first and middle letters a little muddled, but he knew them by heart, even if he didn’t recognize the script. In the many years since the mark first appeared—well over half his life, now—he had tried identifying which alphabet the letters belonged to, and what name it spelled out, but without success. He supposed that to an extent it was a relief that whoever it was, the person wasn’t part of the Kold empire, and therefore likely someone he’d never meet.

He gritted his teeth, annoyed to be distracted again by something that didn’t matter to him, and switched off the water. It took him little time to dry himself off, his hair puffing up again. He went into the bedroom looking for the black shorts and white shirt he had been given last time, but the only pieces of clothing in the closet were an ugly pink shirt and yellow slacks. He gritted his teeth as he dressed, blaming the blue-haired woman for this insult.

He made his way through the maze of corridors, trying to remember where the kitchen was located, and trusting his nose to guide him in the correct direction in case he made a wrong turn. He eventually found himself in the large room, delicious scents in the air—the blonde woman had her back to him, focusing on the several pots and pans on the stovetop. She seemed to hear him when he scraped one of the chairs on the tiled floor, pulling it back so he could sit and wait for his food.

“Vegeta! Just a few more minutes and lunch will be ready.” She walked over toward him anyway, a light brown basket in hand. “These dumplings are ready if you’d like to get started.”

He nodded towards her, taking the basket and opening it to see a half-dozen little balls inside. It would barely take the edge off of his hunger, but it would make do for now.

As he munched on the third ball—dumpling?—and savored the delicious salty flavor, the blue-haired woman walked in, mug in hand. He thought she noticed him, but she walked straight towards her mother instead, inspecting the other woman’s efforts. “Hi, Mom. Can I grab some noodles before the bottomless pit over there eats everything?”

“Of course, dear! There’s more than enough for everyone.”

He scowled, annoyed at being talked about as if he weren’t in the room. The blue-haired woman filled her mug with a steaming, dark drink and walked over towards him. “Hey Vegeta, back already?” She then sat at the round table one seat over to his left, taking some white granules that were at the center and adding them to her drink. He thought her hair looked ridiculous, a curly cloud around her head, and decided he preferred how it had looked before.

“Unfortunately,” he said after swallowing the fourth dumpling. The woman reached out and grabbed one of the dumplings, and he growled at her audacity to steal his food. He quickly popped the sixth one in his mouth before she could steal it. “Is Kakarotto back?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” she said after taking a delicate bite. “I guess you didn’t find him, huh?”

He grunted in response, glaring.

She sighed. “I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

“Food’s ready!” the blonde woman proclaimed as she started piling dishes on the spinning disk at the center of the table. Vegeta’s mouth watered, deciding that Earth’s food had to rank somewhere in the top five best cuisines in the known galaxy. He quickly started piling it onto his plate, hunger suddenly overwhelming.

It took several mouthfuls of a meat he couldn’t identify slathered in a dense sauce and some sticky white grains before his hunger abated slightly, and he became aware of the women again. The blonde one had sat with them at the table, and by the smell of it she was sipping the same hot drink—the blue-haired one was eating at a much slower pace than him and chatting with her mother. He was fine with being ignored as he took another bite, half-listening to them talk about some sort of conference the blue-haired woman would be attending.

He was looking at them from the corner of his eyes as he took another bite of the delicious mystery meat, deciding he would ask what it was for future reference, when his eye caught the dark symbols etched onto the blue-haired woman’s wrist. She hadn’t covered her wrist either, and as she had reached with her chopsticks to pick up another dumpling, her long orange sleeve had pulled back, exposing her skin. Before he knew what he was doing he reached out, faster than she probably could see, and grabbed her left wrist, script visible. He felt his stomach drop and he swallowed the half-chewed meat, mouth suddenly dry. He hadn’t been wrong, and there, right under his eyes, were the triangular symbols he hadn’t seen in decades, spelling out his name in the Saiyan alphabet.

In his stunned surprise he hadn’t even noticed that she had been screaming at him and trying to get her wrist free. He only became fully ware when she slapped him across his left cheek.

“Let me go, you asshole! Who the fuck do you think you are?!” she bellowed as he felt his cheek stinging. He released her. “How dare you?!” she hissed, cradling her wrist against her chest. “I know you’re an alien, but you don’t just grab a human and stare at their soulmark! What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Her cheeks were red, likely in anger and mortification, and she was baring her teeth at him in a way that looked very Saiyan.

Confused and embarrassed, he clicked his tongue in irritation, and swiftly stood up to leave. He needed to get away, but as he was making his way to the kitchen entryway, he simultaneously noticed her mug flying in his direction and two enormous ki signatures entering the planet’s atmosphere. It was easy to dodge the mug, which broke against the wall, splattering brown liquid on white paint. But he just stared in the direction of the ki signatures, feeling his stomach drop again and hating the sensation. He balled his hands into fists and grit out, “There are two powerful fighters on their way to Earth.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Gather your weak Earthling fighters and tell them to head to the landing site. They aren’t friendly.” He didn’t wait for her reply, running upstairs to change back into the new armor he picked up on his trip. He would never admit his hands shook as he got dressed, desperately hoping that the familiar ki wasn’t who he thought, and he blasted into the air from his room’s balcony.

* * *

He landed about a kilometer away from the spaceship, next to the Namekian, and masked his ki. “How long ago did they land?”

“About ten minutes,” the Namekian replied. “You didn’t find Goku?” Vegeta shook his head. “We should wait for the others then, neither of us can take them in single combat.”

Vegeta clicked his tongue, annoyed. “The only one who will be any use is the half-breed, and even then we are vastly outmatched. We must come up with a strategy.”

As he finished his sentence, the half-breed and baldy landed next to him, followed in succession by the three-eyed freak and the weakest human, scars on his face. He was surprised to see the blue-haired woman was in scar-face’s arms, coming to the battlefield in some suicidal attempt to see what was happening. As soon as they landed, she glared at Vegeta, obviously not having forgiven or forgotten what he had done. He put it out of his mind.

“The Namekian and the half-breed will join me in fighting the two powerful intruders, the rest of you take care of the low-level soldiers. There might be fifteen or twenty of them in the ship.” He noticed the boy visibly paling at his instructions, but quickly clenching his fists.

“What the hell, Vegeta?” Baldy replied. “You don’t tell us what to do.”

“He might be right. These two are way too powerful, even for Goku if he were here,” the Namekian said.

“Who are they, Vegeta?” the half-breed asked him.

“His ki is slightly different, which is why you likely don’t recognize it, but it’s Frieza. The other one is either his father or his brother.”

The others gasped in horror, and he ignored their claims that it was impossible as he made his way towards the ship, running instead of flying so he could keep his ki hidden. He was the first to make his way up the ridge, and he lay low to the ground when he got to the top, assessing the situation below. The ship’s door was open, soldiers inspecting the ground around them and establishing a perimeter. It was undeniable this was King Kold’s flagship, but he was still overwhelmed by anger when he saw Frieza walk out of the ship with his father in tow.

As the others crouched next to him, whispering amongst themselves in disbelief, Vegeta came to terms with the fact that today he’d likely either die again or ascend and avenge his people. Frieza’s ki was even more powerful than what he had sensed on Namek, and he steeled himself for the horror that was ahead of him as he prepared to power up, when he saw the teenager arriving.

It all happened very quickly, and before he knew it, he was alarmed to see the boy’s ki skyrocket, golden aura enveloping him as his hair stood on end. Vegeta’s blood ran cold, and his stomach dropped for the third time that day when Kakarotto’s brat proclaimed that the boy down below had ascended to Super Saiyan. Frieza and his father were quickly in pieces, and then promptly vaporized, and Vegeta wanted to punch the brat into the dirt.

The only reason he didn’t was because the boy approached them and said Kakarotto would be arriving within two hours. But he still couldn’t help his anger, and violently bumped into the boy’s shoulder with his own as he took up into the air, waiting for the boy to lead them towards the other landing site.

Once they reached their destination, Vegeta dropped onto the ground behind the lavender-haired boy and sat on a rock, wordless.

“Who are you, kid?” Baldy asked, a little skeptical.

“I’m sorry, I can’t say much except that Goku is on his way.”

“How are you a Saiyan?” the half-breed asked, curious and shy.

Vegeta snorted loudly, crossing his arms. “He’s no Saiyan, not with that coloring. At most he’s a half-breed like you, brat.”

The lavender-haired boy frowned at him, then looked back at Kakarotto’s son. “Sorry, I can’t tell you either.”

The blue-haired woman had walked closer to them, inspecting the boy. “Where did you get that Capsule Corp jacket?”

He very obviously blushed under her scrutiny, and Vegeta rolled his eyes. “Uh, my mother gave it to me.”

“Well, your mother has good taste.” The blue-haired woman walked even closer, smile a little mischievous. “Does this mean your mother is human? Or at least from Earth?”

The kid clearly got flustered, waving his hands in front of him. “N-no. I’m sorry, I can’t say anything about that.”

“Is there anything you can tell us, besides that Goku is returning?” she inquired, clearly becoming more and more curious.

“I’m seventeen years old?”

Vegeta scowled, trying to calculate how old that was in his terms. As soon as he realized how it translated, he felt like punching the boy again. So young and already ascended! Vegeta clearly slipped and accidentally increased his ki in his rage, fists clenched, as most of the people present turned to look at him warily. Except the boy, who looked confused.

“Oh, you’re so young!” the blue-haired harpy exclaimed, the only one oblivious to Vegeta’s anger, and he was almost done with this circus.

“I have some drinks, would you like some while we wait?” the soft-spoken boy offered, taking a case from his pocket, and popping a capsule before anyone could answer. A small fridge appeared in the smoke, and the boy kneeled to open it.

“A capsule! You’re definitely at least half-human, then. Vegeta, there aren’t anything like capsules on other planets, right?” the blue-haired woman asked.

“No.”

The boy blushed again, and offered the other people canned drinks, ignoring the woman’s comment.

“How could he be Saiyan and human, Bulma?” Kakarotto’s brat asked.

The woman shrugged. “No one knew your dad was Saiyan, right? Maybe there’s another one around.”

Vegeta scoffed. “Impossible, the only two Saiyans alive are me and Kakarotto, and his brat is the only half-breed.”

“It’s either that or you and your cronies came to Earth seventeen years ago, raped a poor woman and left, Vegeta,” the blue-haired woman said, hands on hips and glaring at him. Her sleeves pulled up again, and he noticed she now wore a bracelet on her left wrist, concealing her mark.

The boy buried his face in his hands, and Vegeta had enough. “Fuck you.”

He lifted up into the air and moved further away from them, sitting on a rock where he couldn’t overhear the group. He was tired of their conjectures, tired of this mysterious young boy he couldn’t blast into nothingness, tired of this endless day. He thought he couldn’t deal with any more surprises, and when the thought of the woman’s mark popped into his head, he pushed it down and away. He’d deal with it later.

The boy’s parentage had to take precedent. He did not understand how he could be Saiyan and have Earth technology—both were undeniable if Kakarotto’s brat was right. Maybe he was Raditz’s spawn and ended up on Earth by accident? But the chances of that happening were slim to none, and it would be an afront to have Raditz’s progeny ascending before Vegeta.

It was also curious that although Vegeta had moved further away from the group, the boy still kept glancing at him occasionally, trying to be discreet. Vegeta’s patience was thin to begin with, and the boy’s curiosity was almost enough to throw him over the edge.

The two hours passed by sluggishly. By the time Kakarotto landed in a space pod, of all things, Vegeta was ready to rip something limb by limb. The idiot casually walked out of the pod and waved at them, smile infuriating. “Hey guys! I appreciate the welcome party, but how did you know I was going to land here?”

No one had time to answer before his brat launched towards him, hugging him tightly. “That young man over there told us you’d land here right now, Dad. Do you know him?”

“Nope, never seen him before. Hi, stranger!”

It didn’t take long for the others to update Kakarotto on what had happened, and before long the boy had the gall to ask to speak with him privately.

Vegeta was ready to fly towards them when both were engulfed by the golden aura again, power beyond anything he had ever known before. He finally accepted that Kakarotto’s brat had been right, and that the boy was indeed a legendary Super Saiyan. How a low, third class moron and a mongrel half-breed had ascended before him was beyond him, and he clenched his fists. They then powered down and started an earnest discussion.

“I wonder what they are talking about,” Kakarotto’s brat sighed.

“The boy is from the future, about 20 years from now,” the Namekian said, and Vegeta supposed he should have been surprised the man had heightened hearing. He had a sinking feeling he couldn’t quite place. “He has come to the past to warn us about a deadly threat. Androids will appear in three years and destroy most of the human population. Almost all of us die.”

Vegeta snorted. “Bunch of weaklings. Of course you all lost and died.”

The Namekian shot him a pointed look. “You stayed on Earth and died too, Vegeta.”

He blinked, surprised by his future self’s choice. He then gritted his teeth. “What about Kakarotto?”

“As I was saying, we all die by the androids’ hands. Except Goku, who dies due to a heart virus and doesn’t even get to fight them.” Kakarotto’s friends all gasped, and Vegeta was silently horrified by the undignified death—the man was an idiot, but as one of the last Saiyans he deserved a warrior’s death. “The boy just handed him the antidote, though, so Goku will be fine now.”

As everyone sighed in relief, Vegeta noticed the Namekian’s ear kept twitching, eavesdropping on the conversation, but he wasn’t relaying the information. His eyes widened, mouth opening slightly in surprise, and he shot Vegeta a side glance, followed by looking at the blue-haired woman, who seemed oblivious. Vegeta’s blood ran cold again.

“What are they saying now? Why is my dad acting surprised?” the brat asked.

The Namekian swallowed drily. “Nothing important. The boy only confirmed he is indeed half-Saiyan.”

The brat smiled widely. “See, I was right!”

Across the plain, their conversation seemed to be over, and the boy decapsulated his time machine, hopped in, and disappeared. Kakarotto flew back towards them, smiling. “Oh, I have so many things to tell you guys!”

“Piccolo told us about the androids,” Baldy said, grimacing. “We all die, huh.”

Kakarotto blinked and looked at the Namekian. He seemed to consider something, but then said enthusiastically, “We won’t die now, we have three years to train and defeat these androids.” He placed his hands on his hips, obviously looking excited about the prospect.

“Why don’t we use the Dragon Balls to wish them away?” the blue-haired woman said. “If everyone dies then we shouldn’t take this lightly.”

“I’m sure that if we train, we will win. Now that we know about the threat, we can focus all of our energies on training. I wouldn’t want to miss this opportunity for a good fight anyway!” Kakarotto said, grinning. “Vegeta, will you join us? Looks like it’ll be a good challenge.”

He smirked. “I’ll ascend and beat them, and then I’ll beat you, Kakarotto.”

“Sounds great!” the idiot exclaimed.

“What about the boy?” Baldy asked. “Is he coming back to help us?”

“T—” Kakarotto seemed to catch himself, and started again. “Yeah, he said he’ll be back in three years to fight with us.”

Tired, and deciding the spectacle to be over, Vegeta powered up and blasted into the air without another word.


	2. Bulma I

Bulma was nursing a mug of coffee, hip propped against the kitchen counter that faced the garden windows, as her mother checked to make sure her cake had baked fully by inserting a thin metallic rod in the batter. “Are you sure he’s around, Mom? Have you actually seen him?”

“Yes,” the other woman said, not looking at Bulma but at the rod, which came back still with a little batter on it. “As soon as Goku came back he asked me if I could leave him some food in the evenings so he could eat after he was done training. The boy definitely has an appetite like Goku’s!” She chuckled good-naturedly and placed the cake back in the oven.

It had been about a week since Goku had returned, along with the surprise that was the time-traveler. It was just as long since she had last seen Vegeta, blasting into the air in a silent fury. Kuririn had wanted to follow him to make sure he wasn’t going to purge a city, but Goku had shrugged it off, and so had she. If he had wanted to indulge his destructive tendencies, he would have done it while Goku was away, not after he returned. Vegeta was probably sulking somewhere after seeing another Saiyan more powerful than him.

Bulma took a sip of her coffee, thinking it needed a little more sugar, and reached over to add another spoonful. Her father had just finished refilling his mug and took a sip of the black coffee. “Dad, what about you? The spaceship is still outside, but I haven’t noticed him using it.”

Her father shook his head. “Sorry, sweetheart, I haven’t seen him. He asked me if I could increase the gravity setting in the spaceship a few days ago, but I told him it was your project now and he needed to talk to you about any upgrades.”

Bulma sighed. Trust him to already be demanding upgrades.

“Are you still upset that he looked at your mark, darling?” her mother asked her, placing her oven mitts on the counter.

Bulma choked on her coffee. “Wh—No! I don’t care what that jackass does. He was probably just curious, or as curious as everyone else is about what it’s supposed to be. He needs to learn some manners, that’s all—he can’t go around grabbing people by the wrist and gawking.”

Her mother picked up her own mug of tea and smiled from behind the rim before taking a sip. “Is that why you started wearing a bracelet again?”

Bulma frowned, suddenly annoyed. “No, of course not! I’m hiring new scientists and it’s not a good idea for them to be able to see my soulmark right away. I don’t want them distracted by it.”

Her mother hummed. “Of course, darling.”

Bulma rolled her eyes, before pushing herself off the counter. She grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and turned to her father. “Come on, Dad, we should get back to work.”

“You go on ahead, sweetheart, I’ll return to the office a little later,” her father said, taking Tama off his shoulder and placing him next to his food bowl in the furthest corner of the kitchen.

“Ok. I’ll see you in a little bit.” Bulma left the kitchen through the back door, walking across the lawn to the corporate side of the compound. She eyed the spaceship that was parked further away, but it was now closed, and likely in use. She then couldn’t help glancing at her bracelet, thinking of how closely Vegeta had scrutinized her mark, and she felt a chill down her spine. The man was already abrasive, but directly looking at her mark had been beyond any of the offensive remarks he had already made, and she concluded that he didn’t realize how intimate the act was for a human. She hadn’t really paid attention to his soulmark—if he had any, if he regularly covered it or not—and she was burning with curiosity as she entered the main research and development building.

* * *

Bulma rubbed her eyes in frustration. She supposed she should call it a day soon, it being well past midnight and her productivity having tanked at least an hour before. She sighed, and looked back at the screen a final time, considering the few scraps of information she managed to piece together on current android technology developed by industries other than Capsule Corp. It was easier to compile academic data, but she was sure she wouldn’t find all her answers there. She sighed again as she saved the data. A full night’s sleep and fresh eyes in the morning would be best.

Before she could even turn the computer off, she heard her personal lab door open. Half of the room was dark, but she could see Vegeta’s silhouette, and unconsciously she placed her hand on her bracelet. She swiveled her chair to face him as he confidently crossed the room, and as soon as the light hit his face she noticed he was frowning—as usual.

She crossed her arms and legs, waiting for him to speak first. They stared at each other as he walked in silence until he stood in front of her and mirrored her pose by crossing his arms as well.

“I need upgrades to the gravity function of the spaceship. It only goes up to 100 g, it’s not enough.”

She huffed. “Good evening, Vegeta. How have you been, I haven’t seen you all week. Why yes, I can upgrade it, since you ask so nicely,” she said bitingly.

“Don’t patronize me,” Vegeta growled. “Do you want to die by the androids or not?”

“Don’t look at me, I wanted to wish them away with the Dragon Balls.” Bulma turned back to her computer and started to shut it off. “Yes, I’ll upgrade the spaceship. I can have it ready for you in about two weeks.” As the screen switched off, she stood up and pocketed her phone.

“Two weeks isn’t good enough. Are you a genius or aren’t you? One week.”

Bulma gritted her teeth, but she was too tired to truly feel angry. She huffed again. “Look, buddy, I don’t know how things were done in Frieza’s army, but I’m not your employee. I’ll get to it when I get to it.” She felt triumphant as his eyes widened, but she noticed it was an empty feeling. Bulma walked past him, heading for the door.

“So, you’re a fraud, then,” Vegeta asserted, and she stopped immediately. “Your claims of competency and intelligence are nothing but vacant lies.”

She turned around, finally feeling anger overtake her. She walked back towards him, glaring and making sure to keep eye contact. She was always surprised to notice he was slightly shorter than her, and it somehow gave her confidence to poked him in the chest. He didn’t budge. “Fuck you. I’m the smartest person you’ve ever met. Don’t you ever doubt it.”

He smirked at her, and her anger just kept building as she thought he was manipulating her into getting exactly what he wanted. “How can I not doubt it when you haven’t proven yourself?” His smirk grew wider. “Words are wind, woman.”

“Wait and see,” Bulma growled. She then turned back around and walked towards the exit. She didn’t wait for him and switched off the lights, leaving him in the dark, then climbed the stairs leading to the first floor of the house. She couldn’t hear if he was following her or not, but she headed towards the kitchen, anger bubbling over, and she decided she needed a drink before going to bed.

She couldn’t believe that even though she could see his manipulation from a mile away, she had still fallen for his tactic. What a dickhead. She opened a bottom cabinet at the counter that faced the garden windows, removing one of the cheaper ‘emergency’ bottles, and poured herself a glass of hard alcohol. It didn’t taste great, but it did what it was supposed to as her muscles relaxed at the first sip. She then looked at the garden windows, and as the lights outside had been shut off, she saw nothing but darkness and her bright reflection on the glass. She froze, however, when she saw Vegeta’s image join her in the kitchen.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She turned around to face him. “Leave me alone. Go train or sleep or whatever it is you do at this time of night.”

He grinned, cocky and infuriating. She finally noticed he had removed his gloves, but the angle meant she couldn’t see his wrists. Bulma gritted her teeth again.

“Not everything is about you,” Vegeta said as he moved towards the fridge. “I haven’t had my evening meal yet.” He proceeded to open the appliance with a casualness that surprised Bulma, and he removed several containers full of food, placing them on the countertop opposite where Bulma stood. She kept holding her drink, watching him.

He was wearing the same dark blue pants and long-sleeved top he had arrived in most recently, and he had obviously been training, not only due to the mud stains on his clothes but to the sweat Bulma had been able to feel under her finger when she poked him. She thought she desperately needed to get him new clothes and throw away the blue fighting suit—she didn’t think laundering would be enough to get it back into a wearable state. Bulma also concluded he was mixing training in the gravity machine and somewhere outdoors, far from the city, since there were no reports of recent destruction.

Vegeta had placed his gloves on the table next to the door when he entered, and the ease with which he found food and warmed it up in the microwave meant this really was something of a routine he had established the past week.

“Are you going to keep standing there watching me like a fool?” Vegeta asked, back turned to Bulma as he removed the second container of food and exchanged it for a third in the microwave.

“This is my house, you know. I can just stand in the kitchen if I want to.”

Vegeta clicked his tongue, likely in irritation. As he popped the lid of the first two containers, seemingly without a care for how hot they were as steam escaped in clouds, Bulma could finally see that he did have a soulmark on his right wrist. From where she stood, she couldn’t see what it said, or even if it was an alphabet she recognized, but she did identify the characteristic dark black lines that crossed the inside of her wrist, his, and almost everyone else’s. It humanized him in a way Bulma couldn’t quite articulate.

“Why did you grab my wrist the other day?” Bulma asked after taking another sip of her drink. “At first I thought it might be because you’d never seen a soulmark before, but you clearly have one too.”

Vegeta grunted, eyeing his wrist while he was taking a fork and knife from the cutlery drawer, then quickly moved his arm so it was out of sight. “Soulmark? We only call them marks—or wrist-marks. It has nothing to do with your soul.”

Bulma was surprised, she hadn’t even considered others might not think of it in the same way. “It’s the name of your soulmate, that’s why it’s a soulmark.”

He sat at the kitchen table with his three large containers and snorted as he speared some meat with his fork. “Soulmate? What a fanciful, sentimental concept.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

He finally looked up at her and made eye contact for the first time since they stood in her lab. “Because it’s none of your business.”

Bulma felt anger bubbling up again. She downed her glass in one gulp and placed it in the kitchen sink. “You’re an annoying bastard, you know that?”

He smirked again. “Oh, I can be annoying, but let me assure you, I’m no bastard.”

She groaned, and noticed he was grinning arrogantly as she left the kitchen. Way to miss the point.

As she climbed the stairs for her bedroom, she considered how lonely it must be to not even believe in soulmates.

* * *

Six days later, Bulma found herself sitting on the gangway steps that lead up to the doorway of the spaceship. The morning was already warm, even though it had been barely half an hour since the sun rose, but it was still peaceful—birds were singing in the nearby garden trees, and there were few employees moving about the compound. Bulma held a thermos top with coffee in her right hand, a lit cigarette in the left, and she had the printed pages of a scientific article on her lap. She’d supposed she could read while she waited for Vegeta, but her mind was still fuzzy after the late night, so she decided to just enjoy the caffeine and the nicotine for the time being.

It had also been six days since she had last seen Vegeta, the man making himself scarce once again. But just to prove her point, she’d finished the upgrades to the gravity machine in under a week. She’d tested its new maximum setting the previous night, and finding it worked perfectly, she’d wanted to rub it into Vegeta’s face. Sadly, she had been unable to find him, and she gave up waiting for him in the kitchen by one in the morning. Instead, she decided to sit outside the spaceship right after the sun rose—his balcony faced the lawn where the ship was parked, and she hoped he’d be too curious about what she was doing just sitting there to prevent him from leaving for the day before talking to her.

It took barely half an hour for Vegeta to fly down from his room and stand in front of her, and she felt like smirking in triumph again. Instead, she took a final drag from her second cigarette and put it out on the sole of her boot. “’Morning, Vegeta.” She’d deflated since the previous night, deciding she would be polite and avoid confronting him so early in the morning—she’d do her best not to argue with him.

The man, however, seemed incapable of politeness, and just grunted in reply. He was wearing a new white t-shirt and black shorts she had gotten him, as well as the green training shoes—so he had found the bag of supplies she left outside his bedroom door. He looked infinitely better in clean clothes, more like a civilized person instead of the half-feral man she first met on Namek—although the scars on his arms and legs dimmed that effect slightly. She felt a little disappointed, though, to see he had decided to wear the pair of gloves she included in the bag. She knew he liked wearing them, but she had hoped he wouldn’t and that she’d get another glimpse of his soulmark. Oh well.

“I finished the upgrades to the gravity settings in the ship,” she said as she threw away the remaining coffee from the thermos top and screwed it back onto the bottle.

Vegeta seemed slightly surprised, but only replied by saying, “Excellent.”

She stood up, placing the pile of papers under one arm and then picked up the thermos with the other. She was used to receiving more praise than just an ‘excellent’, but she supposed that was already a lot coming from Vegeta. “Let’s go inside, I’ll show you how to adjust the settings. I added some new features you might find useful.” She didn’t wait for him to reply before climbing the final steps to the ship, but she noticed he raised his eyebrows slightly.

The interior now felt larger, as she hid the chairs that faced the viewscreen under the floor. In truth the mechanism was similar to capsularization technology, in which the chairs simply retracted into capsules under trapdoors. This increased the area Vegeta had for training, but the chairs were still deployable in case anyone needed to go into space again. The ship now only had the two consoles visible—the larger one in the center of the room with the gravity settings, and the one in front of the viewscreen with the ship’s navigation control.

She walked up to the larger console and placed the pile of papers and the thermos on the ledge at the top. Vegeta had followed her in, arms crossed. She pressed the button to power on the machine.

“Ok, turning it on and getting it started are the same. The machine is now capable of going up to 150 g—that should last you for a little while before I need to upgrade it again. You can just input the value as you were doing before. The new feature is a set of timed programs. If you want the machine to gradually increase the gravity for a set amount of time, or decrease it then increase it again—or really, however you’d like to program it, in different steps—you can now do that. For example, you can have it automatically increase 5 g every ten minutes. You just need to head back into the main menu—” she pushed the buttons that took her back, then selected the setting. “So, you select ‘Program’, and then you have six different variations you can pre-record. Everything is pretty self-explanatory, you just select ‘Time’ and ‘Gravity’ for each one of the steps.” She turned around to see if Vegeta was following her instructions and was surprised by his expression. He seemed to be concentrating intensely on what she was saying and doing, and he mumbled to himself under his breath. “Uh, the settings aren’t super intuitive, but they shouldn’t be hard to figure out. Are you having any difficulty following the steps?”

He finally turned his gaze from the screen and looked at her. “No, I’m memorizing what you are saying and pressing.”

Bulma was confused. “Memorizing? You don’t have to memorize it, each one of the settings is labelled.”

Vegeta frowned. “I can’t read your letters. You idiots had to reinvent the wheel and create a new alphabet for a language that _already had one_.”

Bulma’s thought-process was completely derailed at Vegeta’s first words, to the point she barely registered his second sentence. “Wait, what do you mean you can’t read? You flew this ship in space for months on end, and the navigation controls are in the same language. You were operating this gravity control as well.”

Vegeta’s body language became defensive. “Your father showed me the controls and I memorized them. I figured out the symbols you use for numbers, and that’s all I needed to input coordinates and operate the gravity machine. Your AI is adequate enough that it didn’t require much else from me.”

She was so shocked she opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to start sentences and failing. She was sure she looked like a complete idiot. “You _memorized_ the controls?” she asked finally, almost choking on the words.

“Yes. And I’ve done it before,” he stated, exasperated. “I’ve piloted ships in different languages. It’s not difficult if you know what you need to do.”

Bulma was floored, to the point she didn’t even feel like complaining that their AI was beyond adequate. “Damn. I hate to admit it, but you’ve got balls to head into space in a ship whose controls you can’t read. At least I learned how to read Namek.”

He seemed to relax a bit at her comment, but continued to frown. “You can keep going. I am capable of memorizing what you are saying.”

She looked at the pile of papers on the console and grabbed a pen in her pocket. “No, it’s ok, you can write down what I’m saying.” She grabbed the last page of the article, which only contained references anyway, and folded it into two. Then she handed it to him, along with the pen. “Feel free to translate what I’m saying and pointing to. I can teach you to read our words, but for now this might be easier.”

Vegeta awkwardly held the pen in his right hand and placed the sheet of paper on the side of the console. He seemed uncomfortable, and the strange letters he was writing were shaky and confusing. He growled in frustration, then handed her back the pen and paper. “It’s fine, it’ll be faster if I memorize it.”

She once again wanted to smile, but held it back, worried he’d misinterpret it. “Uh, Vegeta, can you write?”

Initially he looked stunned, then he bared his teeth in anger. He balled his fists, cheeks flushing under his darker skin, and for the first time that morning Bulma was reminded of how short his temper truly was. “How _dare_ you insinuate I’m illiterate! I can read and speak three different languages, all of which have their own alphabets! You are the idiots who couldn’t just use the universal symbols!”

Bulma quickly extended her hands in front of her apologetically. “No! Look, I’m sorry, ok? I didn’t mean to offend you. You just didn’t seem to know how to write with a pen, that’s all. And I wouldn’t judge you if you were illiterate, Yamcha couldn’t read or write very well when I first met him.”

Vegeta seemed to calm down slightly, but not by much. “Who?”

“Yamcha?” She rolled her eyes. “My boyfriend? Guy with scars on his face? If you’re our ally you really need to start learning our names, you know.”

“I cannot believe you are comparing me to that weakling!” Vegeta exclaimed, and he seemed ready to blow a gasket again. Bulma was starting to get tired of walking on eggshells. “The man who was killed by a Saibaman!”

“Calm down! I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant as an insult! If anything, I’m the one who should be insulted that you think my partner is useless.”

“Enough!” He turned around, starting to walk towards the door. “I can operate this adequately already. Get out.”

“Look, can we just start over?” she asked while rubbing her eyes, annoyed. “I really don’t want to fight with you this morning, and I much rather show you how to use the controls properly, otherwise I wasted my time.”

He stopped and walked back towards the console. “Fine. Get on with it.”

“Can I just ask you one last question? Don’t you guys use pens in space?”

He grunted. “No. I rarely need to use antiquated tools and write with ink. All our writing is digital.”

Now things finally started to make sense for her, although she thought it was funny to think of ball-point pens as antiquated. “Oh, ok. I can get you an electronic pad later on so you can type stuff out. Or you know, draw it. Do you just want to memorize everything now?”

“Yes.”

She sighed in relief, congratulating herself mentally for being able to defuse the situation. She went back to the console and showed him the final few commands he needed to learn, and she was slower to demonstrate the steps to him this time.

“Ok, that should be it. Any questions?”

“No.”

“Great. Just let me know if you need any help. The big red button over there is still the kill switch, so if anything happens that’ll disable the artificial gravity.”

He nodded. “Yes, I know.”

“Ok, I’ll leave you to it.” She picked up her papers and thermos, but turned back to him before leaving. “I’m serious, though, I can teach you how to read our alphabet. It’ll be useful if you’re going to live here for the next few years. Just come find me when you have the time.”

He sneered at her. “I don’t need your help.”

She sighed again, deciding she really just wanted this conversation to be done. “Fine. It’ll be an exchange, then. You teach me all the symbols that were on Raditz’s scouter, and I’ll teach you ours. Deal?”

He seemed to think about it for a few seconds, then relented. “It’s a deal.”

She took a deep breath once she left the ship and stepped onto the grass.


	3. Vegeta II

Vegeta could already smell the delicious scents coming from the kitchen at this early hour in the morning. He didn’t need to follow his nose anymore, as he had become familiar with the layout of the house. He navigated the corridors until he entered the large room, which was filled with the soft morning light and the sounds of Mrs. Briefs’ cooking.

“Good morning, dear! Your tea is ready,” she said, briefly turning around to point at the teapot and mug on the counter. She didn’t need to, as every morning he arrived at the same time, and the tea sat ready in the same position on the counter. He appreciated the predictability, however, as well as her reliability, as he poured himself the hot drink. He then took his mug to the round table and sat down. Like clockwork, Mrs. Briefs placed large portions of rice, vegetables and grilled fish in front of him, on the spinning platform in the center of the table. He nodded in appreciation and started serving himself. “I’ve made you some mackerel,” she pointed towards the fish, “with zucchini and mushrooms this morning, I hope you like them.”

In the first few weeks after his return, he’d frequently encounter Mrs. Briefs in the kitchen early in the morning, as they were always the first people awake in the household. He had searched for an early meal before he started training, and she had enthusiastically offered to cook for him. Initially she served him sweet, carbohydrate-rich meals that slowed him down in the mornings. He suggested—suggested? He definitely hadn’t asked, but demanded sounded too strong a word in his estimation—that she prepare a lighter meal, with protein and plant matter instead, and she had obliged ever since. Mrs. Briefs had also helpfully started announcing, unprompted, what it was she had cooked for him, and he appreciated the gesture as he learned the names of the different dishes she served him.

Strangely, Mrs. Briefs was the member of the household he felt most comfortable interacting with currently. She was loud and boisterous, and awfully affectionate, but she was predictable and helpful. Initially he found her grating. He was confused as to why she kept trying to please him, and what she got out of helping him, but eventually decided her intentions weren’t at all complicated—she just seemed to take pleasure out of pleasing others. He couldn’t say he understood her motivation, but he was uncharacteristically thankful, even if he didn’t express it as blatantly as she expressed herself.

As always, the grilled fish was delicious, and the vegetables were flavorful. He wasn’t sure which one was the zucchini, and which was the mushroom, but he thought he still had to get used to the texture of the brown-grey one. He frowned—he had eaten much, much worse over his lifetime, and reminded himself he shouldn’t get used to complaining about vegetable texture.

“I’m baking a pie this afternoon, dear,” she said as she washed the pans. Her bracelets jangled as she moved, filling the kitchen with clinking sounds. “If you’d like to take a break mid-afternoon, there will be a sweet treat for you in the kitchen.”

He nodded again as he kept eating, and noticed that she had seen the gesture, smiling widely at him. Vegeta frowned slightly but then tried to smooth out his features. He still wasn’t used to interacting with someone who didn’t seem to judge him—she was neither afraid of him, nor thought him inferior, she didn’t even despise him. He supposed she simply didn’t know how much blood he had on his hands, how many souls he had sent to the afterlife, or how many planets he had purged. She was so helpless it would be easy to snap her neck, but he thought he would keep her ignorant of what he was capable of for now.

Her husband, Vegeta thought, was harder to read. Dr. Briefs always had a placid tone of voice and a calmness about him that Vegeta found disconcerting, hiding behind his lit cigarette. A man as smart as him had to be concealing something—an ulterior incentive or an unknown motivation, perhaps.

Vegeta finished eating, popping the last bit of fish into his mouth, then stood as he still chewed, taking some of the plates to the sink.

“Don’t worry about it, Vegeta! Just leave them on the table, I’ll take care of them. Finish your tea and go train,” Mrs. Briefs said, shooing him back to the round table. Vegeta drank the last of his tea and left through the back doorway, exiting into the garden.

Summer had finally arrived, and the air was already warm and humid, even if it was still early. Vegeta wasn’t bothered by it, but the gravity room became an oven in the heat. While planet Vegeta had been considerably warmer, he had become used to the cold spaceships he travelled in and was still adjusting to the constant heat once again. He wondered if he should chance a meeting with Bulma to request a cooling system be installed in the ship—the last time he avoided asking her for an upgrade had been a waste of time.

As he entered, he pressed the button on the panel next to the main door that closed it and heard the characteristic hum as it locked into place. He then walked towards the large panel and turned on the artificial gravity machine—the letters on the main menu still mostly unintelligible to him. He wouldn’t admit it, but they made him uncomfortable, and he hadn’t yet sought Bulma out to learn them. They were far more familiar than he would like, and he had placed his wrist next to the console to compare the letters written on his arm to the letters on the screen. There was undoubtedly a similarity, but they weren’t exactly the same. Still, the familiarity itself already unsettled him and he didn’t want to address this issue if he didn’t have to.

He hadn’t realized how similar the symbols were when he first flew the ship, never considering that the letters on his wrist could match a person on this planet. They weren’t a fighting society, and the few fighters were all weak—their planet a backwater hole in the middle of nowhere—so there had been nothing to consider. It was mortifying if true.

If this had happened a year earlier—before Namek, before his humiliation and death, before he gained his freedom—he had no doubt he would have just blasted her and her family and her home, pretending he had never seen his name on someone’s flesh. It would have been easier. But now—now he had to train to ascend to the Legendary form himself and defeat Kakarotto. The man was a soft fool, but Vegeta didn’t doubt that Kakarotto wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he blasted Bulma away.

He also wouldn’t ever admit that he was actively avoiding Bulma—had been for over a month. Not that it was difficult with both their schedules. But he avoided being in any common areas of the house if she was around. If he didn’t encounter her then he didn’t have to risk seeing his name on her wrist again. The image still haunted him as he set the gravity to 10 g so he could start warming up.

He dropped into a fighting stance, feeling the artificial force pulling on his muscles slightly. He began the slow, controlled movements of his first kata, trying to focus. He threw the first right-handed punch, then used his left in an imitation of a blocking movement, making the gestures fluid.

Bulma had no business having his name on her arm. She had no significant ki and wasn’t a fighter, therefore she could never be his partner on the battlefield. She would never have his back in a fight, she would never share the joys and the spoils of victory with him—this was a farce, a joke. It was worse than never meeting the person that carried his name on their arm, which he had accepted to be his fate long ago.

As thoughts of her mark invaded his mind, his exasperation grew. Vegeta had been chasing an explanation for weeks, but all he knew was rage and irritation at the thought. He was no closer to peace of mind.

He took a deep breath and stopped his kata, movements having become sloppy with his anger. He decided the only thing that could distract him from the intruding thoughts was to increase the gravity and throw himself into grueling exercise. He wasn’t wrong.

* * *

It turned out that taking a break to eat pie had been a mistake. As soon as he opened the back door and entered the kitchen, hand still on the doorknob, he saw Bulma’s cloud of blue hair as she sat at the table with her father. Vegeta would have retreated if only Dr. Briefs hadn’t seen him, and his pride prevented him from showing his hesitation. He cursed himself for not checking where her ki was—she usually was in another building this time of day.

Bulma must have noticed her father looking at the door, as she turned around. “Oh, hey Vegeta. I’ve been looking for you.”

Of course she had. He cursed under his breath.

“Come have some pie, then I’ll go grab your pad.” Bulma stood up and took a bowl from the cabinet, then cut a thick slice of the pie that sat on the counter. Before she handed it to him, she went to the freezer and removed a container, scooping whatever was inside onto the bowl. As she held it out to him with her left hand, he was relieved to see that although her arms were bare she was wearing a bracelet again, this time in silver with geometric patterns etched into it.

He took the bowl and looked at the goopy spoonful of _something_ that sat next to his pie. “What is this?” he asked, tone sharp.

“Pear pie and vanilla ice-cream,” she replied, nonchalant. “You’ll like it. I brewed some fresh coffee, if you’d like some it’s in that bottle.” She pointed at a thermal bottle that sat on the counter next to the pie, then left the room unceremoniously. Vegeta growled again, looking at the bowl in his hands.

“Come sit here with me, Vegeta. She’ll be right back,” Dr. Briefs said genially. Vegeta couldn’t help but glare at him, yet sat down regardless.

The pie was appetizing, sweet but not too sweet. The ice-cream’s coolness and texture felt wrong in his mouth, however. He tried eating the slice as fast as he could, hoping to leave before Bulma came back, the excuse that she took too long. Unfortunately, she returned within five minutes. She brandished a flat screen in her hand, smiling gleefully. “Here’s your pad, as promised,” she said as she offered it to him.

He picked up the blank screen, then stared at her questioningly.

“Here, you can turn it on by pressing the button on the side.” She reached out, brushing her bare hand against his gloved one as she activated it. He wanted to recoil, but held his ground. “You can use this to write and save anything you want. Once you show me the letters you are used to, I can program them into it so you can type them, but for now you can use this,” she touched an icon on the screen and it turned white, “to draw the symbols. Just drag your finger on the screen.” She demonstrated the movement, tracing a straight line, then smiled broadly, clearly pleased with herself. “So, when are you stopping by to teach me?” she asked as she sat down once more.

“When I can spare the time,” he snapped back.

She clearly wasn’t pleased by his answer, frowning. “What, Mr. I-know-three-alphabets is too busy sweating away through the day to spare me half an hour?”

He curled his lip, “I’m not here to entertain you.” He noticed the elderly man standing up, taking his plate to the sink.

“Entertain me?” she shot back. “I offered to help you!”

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He was thankful none of them could feel ki, since his was progressively increasing along with his frustration. When he opened his eyes, he saw she was glaring at him, and they remained in a silent battle of wills, eyes locked.

“Fine. I’ll show you right now, take me to your laboratory.” He instantly regretted his words as she smiled, victorious. He did not want to deal with the fallout of this.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she asked as she stood up.

“Don’t make me take it back, woman,” he growled, when it was exactly what he wanted to do. He also stood and grabbed the pad, bowls forgotten on the table.

She just laughed, and once again he felt like punching something. “Why does talking to you always feel like pulling teeth?” she asked as they walked downstairs, her tone teasing.

“Interacting with me is like torture? What an unexpected compliment.”

It was her turn to glare at him. “Very funny,” she replied flatly as they crossed the room. She turned her computer on, then pulled another chair so he could sit next to her. He remained standing. “What did you mean when you said our language already had an alphabet?”

“We’re speaking in Galactic Standard; your planet was likely colonized several cycles ago and the population retained the language. I don’t know why the script was lost. The symbols on our scouters are the original writing system.” He didn’t think he was saying anything out of the ordinary, but she turned to stare at him in surprise.

“Ok—buddy, there’s so much there to unpack there,” she finally retorted.

“Do not call me ‘buddy’,” he ground out. “I’m a Prince, do not dare to use nicknames for me.”

“Fine, _Your Highness_.” Her sarcasm was obvious, and he wondered how she kept making him regret his words. “Let’s establish some common ground first.” She then opened up a window on her screen that had the symbols he was familiar with, followed by her letters. “This is what I think I figured out. The alphabet is also linear, symbols corresponding to phonemes, both vowels and consonants, right?”

He begrudgingly admitted to himself that he was impressed. “Yes. With 29 symbols in total.”

“Huh. I thought it was 28. Ours, the one we use here in West City, has 26 graphemes. Although we have upper and lower cases.” She turned to the screen and started typing. “I think the easiest might be to have you point out to me how to write certain words until I can match all the 29 to our 26.”

“Agreed.”

And so, before Vegeta knew it, an hour had flown by and his apprehension only grew. Bulma had initially asked him to spell out simple words, eventually moving up to four syllable words, until she was sure she had all of them matched. They then moved to numbers and mathematics, a considerably faster task as Vegeta had already deciphered the digits. Finally, she displayed both writing systems side by side, and Vegeta’s world froze when he spelled out her name in his head and got confirmation of the worst outcome. The first letter on his wrist undoubtedly matched the B, while the others looked slightly different than what he had on his skin. Regardless, it was the same writing system. His mood soured as what he hoped wasn’t true was spelling itself out in front of him.

“Why do you look like you’re upset?” Bulma asked skeptically, breaking through the buzzing in his head.

He just grunted in reply and quickly stood up, ready to leave.

She sighed. “Fine, be that way. I’ll send this file to your pad so you can study it. I can also remotely install a digital keyboard with these symbols for you. Any chance you’ll show me the other two languages?”

“No.” He didn’t wait for her reply as he left the room and the house in quick succession, needing to get away.

* * *

His rage was utterly consuming. His initial instinct was to blast the house into nothingness, but instead he flew into the wilderness, far from the city, and punched his way through a cliff. It wasn’t as rewarding as killing something, but the destruction was soothing to an extent. His mind raced with indignant thoughts about the cosmic joke that was played on him, and he vowed that if he ever discovered which deity was responsible for wrist-marks he would tear them apart limb by limb.

His entire life he believed that whoever bore the name on his wrist would be a fighter. Someone who could match his skill, who would share a battlefield and his Saiyan bloodlust. Developing a wrist-mark that wasn’t Saiyan was humiliating enough for the heir to the Saiyan throne, but he had come to terms with the fact—there were very few Saiyans left in the galaxy, after all, especially when he developed his mark ten years after the destruction of planet Vegeta. But someone who wasn’t even a combatant? Absurd.

He noticed a large lizard trying to escape the raining boulders, and he didn’t think twice about flying directly towards it and severing its head with a strong blow. The animal was large, maybe ten times his size, and its blood poured out of the stump of its neck. Vegeta just stood on the ground next to the body, watching the blood pool on the dirt around his shoes.

He grew up with Nappa’s tales of Saiyan armies comprised entirely of matched fighters—soldiers protecting markmates made for formidable opponents who did not go down easily, and these squadrons had been known across the galaxy for their ruthlessness. To the point that Frieza had become apprehensive of their destructive power. Vegeta had always imagined that his markmate would have made them parallel and surpass those stories if they ever met.

For a short while he had hoped that his and Bulma’s marks weren’t a complete match—it wasn’t entirely unheard of for a person to have a mark that wasn’t corresponded. But seeing the similarities earlier that day had made him sure whose name was on his wrist, even if he couldn’t yet decipher all the letters.

As he watched the blood turning a dark brown on the earth and the white rubber of his shoes, he was surprised to suddenly feel Kakarotto standing next to him. Vegeta didn’t wait for the idiot to say a single word when he punched him, fist making direct contact with the other man’s jaw and the force throwing him to the ground.

Kakarotto winced as he touched his jaw. “Hi, Vegeta.” After making sure nothing was broken, Kakarotto stood up. “I came to see if you were alright, I felt your ki spiking a lot, but I guess the answer is ‘no’, huh?”

Vegeta just growled and powered up again, purple aura engulfing him.

“Did Bulma say something that upset you?” Kakarotto asked. “She can be demanding, but she’s a good person, you know?”

“It’s none of your fucking business,” he snarled, power just increasing at the mention of her name.

“Ok. Do you just want to spar, then?”

Vegeta launched himself into the air, ready to land a kick to Kakarotto’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Vegeta's stilted and formal style: in the dub I'm familiar with, Vegeta and Piccolo, as well as a young Gohan, have more formal tones than everyone else. The only time I remember Vegeta being informal in DBZ was when he snapped at Future Trunks, complaining he was staring. In my mind it makes sense he'd have a slightly different speech pattern, especially at first, and I'm trying to replicate it here.


End file.
